Tulane University is mapping out a visionary path for integrating AI into its academic and research endeavors, including providing comprehensive training and support for faculty, encouraging the use of new artificial intelligence tools in teaching, and addressing ethical concerns related to the use of AI. The AI in Classroom Committee and the University Committee on Generative AI (GenAI) in Research were convened last fall by Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Robin Forman in response to President Michael A. Fitts’ call to examine how AI can and should best be applied to advance the mission of the university.
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Why AI Makes Educators More Important Than Ever - Cornelia C. Walther, Forbes
As AI becomes an integral part of our daily lives, the real question isn’t how it works but how we can use it to enhance both ourselves and the world around us. Whether you're a teacher, a manager, or a parent, everyone of us has the power to be an educator, a coach, or a mentor in this new era where AI is playing a transformative role. The challenge lies in curating a mindset that moves away from seeing AI and humans as competing forces and instead embraces a hybrid approach that leverages the strengths of both. From an ‘either-or’ logic we are tasked to reframe our mindset to ‘And’.
Friday, August 30, 2024
Silicon Whistleblowers: When Autonomous Robots Become Our Moral Compass - Thomas Frey, Futurist Speaker
The robot whistleblower is a concept that could revolutionize the way we expose and combat corruption. These autonomous humanoid robots would serve as impartial information intermediaries, bridging the gap between hidden truths and public knowledge without the vulnerabilities inherent to human whistleblowers. The advantages of using AI for whistleblowing are manifold. First and foremost, these robotic entities would be immune to the human fears and pressures that often deter potential whistleblowers. They wouldn’t worry about legal repercussions, exile, or damage to personal relationships. This fearlessness could lead to more frequent and bold exposures of wrongdoing, as the robot would not hesitate to reveal information regardless of its sensitivity or the power of those implicated.
It's the End of the World as We Know It: Do We Feel Fine? - Diane Stopyra, University of Delaware
The AI genie is out of the bottle. In 2024, artificial intelligence has infiltrated every sector of our lives, from healthcare to politics to dog walking (yes, you really can enlist a robot for that). But for all its ubiquity, AI remains a question mark in the collective consciousness. Are we optimistic… or afraid? Thinking about this new era feels like watching a Blue Hen playoff game: You’re excited but also on the edge of your seat with nervous energy.
Thursday, August 29, 2024
University of Alabama Program Pushes AI Use on Professors - Williesha Morris, al.com
The University of Alabama is embracing AI in the classroom with the Artificial Intelligence Teaching Enhancement Initiative, which guides faculty on incorporating the technology in the classroom. From conversing with Mayan people to creating a virtual travel guide to debating the effectiveness of capital punishment, educators are using artificial intelligence n numerous ways to spice up classroom activities and assignments. The University of Alabama is embracing the usage of AI in the classroom with the Artificial Intelligence Teaching Enhancement Initiative, which guides faculty on incorporating the technology in the classroom.
OpenAI ORION (GPT-5) Arrives with Strawberry AI This Fall: AGI Soon! - AI Revolution
OpenAI's upcoming AI model, codenamed 'Strawberry,' promises groundbreaking advancements in solving complex problems and generating synthetic data, potentially advancing towards AGI. This model, surpassing previous benchmarks, showcases significant improvements in reasoning and planning, with implications for fields ranging from business strategy to national security. Despite internal challenges and debates on AI safety, Strawberry's development highlights a major leap in AI capabilities, putting OpenAI at the forefront of cutting-edge technology.
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
Special Report: Reducing Points of Friction With AI - Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed
Inside Higher Ed’s new deep dive report, published with support from Amazon Web Services, reviews the wide variety of ways in which institutions are using AI, including that meaningful middle territory in which institutions are using both generative and nongenerative AI to optimize enrollment and other often-opaque processes for students to boost access and equity. It also considers how institutions such as the University of Michigan and Arizona State University are approaching AI from an enterprise perspective.
These Living Computers Are Made from Human Neurons - Jordan Kinard, Scientific American
Artificial intelligence systems, even those as sophisticated as ChatGPT, depend on the same silicon-based hardware that has been the bedrock of computing since the 1950s. But what if computers could be molded from living biological matter? Some researchers in academia and the commercial sector, wary of AI’s ballooning demands for data storage and energy, are focusing on a growing field known as biocomputing. This approach uses synthetic biology, such as miniature clusters of lab-grown cells called organoids, to create computer architecture. Biocomputing pioneers include Swiss company FinalSpark, which earlier this year debuted its “Neuroplatform”—a computer platform powered by human-brain organoids—that scientists can rent over the Internet for $500 a month.
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
California weakens bill to prevent AI disasters before final vote, taking advice from Anthropic - Maxwell Zeff, TechCrunch
“We accepted a number of very reasonable amendments proposed, and I believe we’ve addressed the core concerns expressed by Anthropic and many others in the industry,” said Senator Wiener in a statement to TechCrunch. “These amendments build on significant changes to SB 1047 I made previously to accommodate the unique needs of the open source community, which is an important source of innovation.” SB 1047 still aims to prevent large AI systems from killing lots of people, or causing cybersecurity events that cost over $500 million, by holding developers liable. However, the bill now grants California’s government less power to hold AI labs to account.
Internships in Generative AI: Best Ones to Explore in August 2024 - Analytics Insight
With AI, Generative AI has emerged as a major transformation in the tech world in recent years. While driving innovation across various sectors including content creation, software development, healthcare, and finance, generative AI has given hope to organizations to adapt its updated mechanisms without any second thought. As companies continue to explore their potential, the demand for skilled professionals is increasing day by day. For students who want to pursue a career in this field, and for beginners who are yet to get hands on experience, internships in Gen AI offer opportunities to gain practical experience. Through these internships, they can strengthen their understanding, and possibly secure a job in this dynamic field. This article discusses some of the top AI Generative internships that will be available in August 2024, outlining their benefits, how to apply, and what makes them unique.
Monday, August 26, 2024
How A.I. Can Help Start Small Businesses - Sydney Ember, NY Times
A professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Sean Ammirati has groups of mostly graduate students start businesses from scratch over the course of the spring semester. Some of the start-ups that his 49 students created this year were classic examples of the form: a dating app for couples in long-distance relationships, a personalized fitness app. But Mr. Ammirati also noticed something unusual. “I have a pretty good sense how fast the progress that students should make in a semester should be,” he said. “In 14 years, I’ve never seen students make the kind of progress that they made this year.” And he knew exactly why that was the case. For the first time, Mr. Ammirati had encouraged his students to use generative artificial intelligence as part of their process — “think of generative A.I as your co-founder,” he recalled telling them.
UC Berkeley to Offer Law Degree With AI Focus - Chase DiFeliciantonio, San Francisco Chronicle
UC Berkeley School of Law has become, possibly, the first law school to offer a degree focused on artificial intelligence literacy for lawyers, as the emerging technology begins to alter the legal profession and the practice of law. "We've always had a strong focus on law and technology, and if you think about what is top of mind for regulators and policy makers, it's AI," said Adam Sterling, the law school's assistant dean. He said the need for a degree focused in the area has increased, as more companies use AI and the technology becomes something attorneys must be familiar with. Roughly half of law schools already offer classes focusing on AI, with an even higher percentage offering clinics and other education about using AI tools, according to a recent American Bar Association survey. Berkeley's two-semester course is different in that it offers a standalone degree for attorneys.
Sunday, August 25, 2024
The AI Scientist | Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery - Wes Roth, YouTube
This news story, originally posted on August 22nd in this blog, is one that has such important ramifications that I encourage all to watch/listen to Wes Roth's podcast. This is about Sakana AI’s ‘AI Scientist’ that conducts research autonomously, challenging scientific norms. As reported in Venture Beat, "Sakana AI, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of British Columbia, has developed an artificial intelligence system that can conduct end-to-end scientific research autonomously. This breakthrough, named “The AI Scientist,” promises to completely transform the process of scientific discovery. The AI Scientist automates the entire research lifecycle, from generating novel ideas to writing full scientific manuscripts."
What Is Gemini Live and How Do You Use It? - Julian Chokkattu, Wired
This is Google's response to OpenAI's GPT-4o, a way to talk to the assistant naturally, much like a normal voice conversation between two humans (or at least that's the goal). It's rolling out in English to Gemini Advanced subscribers ($20 per month), and you can access it by tapping on the little Live button at the bottom right of the Gemini app. It will come to the iOS app and more languages in the coming weeks. Sissie Hsiao, Google’s vice president of Gemini experiences, tells WIRED this chatbot isn’t just a reheated Google Assistant. Instead, it’s an interface that’s been completely rebuilt using generative AI. “Over the years of building Assistant, there are two things users have asked us for repeatedly,” Hsiao says. “Number one is they've asked for a more fluid and natural assistant—they want to be able to talk to it naturally without having to change the way they speak. The second is more capable; to help them solve their life problems, not just simple tasks.”
How are you feeling today?
I will begin writing that column today - again, though, no hurry on your insight(s) - I will just be getting started.
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Midjourney has competition — I got access to Google Imagen 3 and it is impressive - Ryan Morrison, Tom's Guide
Google DeepMind promises higher-quality images across a range of styles including photorealism, oil paintings and graphic art. It can also understand natural language prompts and complex camera angles. I fed all this into Claude and had it come up with a bullet list of promised features. I then refined each bullet into a prompt to cover as many areas as possible. The one I’m most excited for is its ability to accurately render text on an image — something few do very well.
Screen time can be safer for your kids with these devices - Jennifer Jolly, USA Today
AI also mirrors society, but it’s a tool we can actually use for good. It can identify virtually anything, including the safety of any given webpage or search term, acting as a sort of protective bubble for kids as they traverse the internet. “We’re not in the business of taking the internet away from kids; as any parent can attest, kids want what they can’t have,” Tim Estes, CEO of Angel AI, writes via email. “The online world also can be an incredibly valuable resource for kids, who risk missing out on key learning opportunities, as well as the chance to build healthy online habits, if they don’t explore the internet earlier on in life.”
Friday, August 23, 2024
6 hard truths of generative AI in the enterprise - Esther Schein, CIO
A May global McKinsey survey puts generative AI usage at 65% of organizations, nearly double the firm’s previous survey 10 months ago. And with that rise, use case are proliferating. As with past technology adoption patterns, most are starting to use genAI in areas that provide tactical benefits, such as improving their existing processes and reducing costs, says Jim Rowan, a principal at Deloitte Consulting. This approach helps derive value from “low-hanging fruit” while building knowledge, experience, and confidence with a new technology, Rowan says.
Can the Mobile Wave Help Us Navigate the AI Wave? - Scott A. Snyder and Julie Ask, Knowledge at Wharton
The AI Wave is growing fast. Billions of people globally are using foundation models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama, along with a sprawling number of vertical generative AI (gen AI) applications. Many enterprises have leaned into this new wave, with over 70% using gen AI in their enterprises; however, just 15% are achieving real business impact at scale. Sound familiar? What can enterprises learn from the Mobile Wave that might help them avoid the same challenges in achieving real transformation in the AI Wave? Let’s start by looking at the similarities and differences between the two waves.
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Sakana AI’s ‘AI Scientist’ conducts research autonomously, challenging scientific norms - Venture Beat
Sakana AI, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of British Columbia, has developed an artificial intelligence system that can conduct end-to-end scientific research autonomously. This breakthrough, named “The AI Scientist,” promises to completely transform the process of scientific discovery. The AI Scientist automates the entire research lifecycle, from generating novel ideas to writing full scientific manuscripts. “We propose and run a fully AI-driven system for automated scientific discovery, applied to machine learning research,” the team reports in their newly released paper.
The key to accelerating AI development? Pragmatism plus imagination - McKinsey Podcast
Leaders are treating generative AI as less of a curiosity and more an integral part of business. McKinsey research sheds light on who is using AI, how they’re using it, and the challenges that remain. We’re here to discuss the latest McKinsey report on the state of AI, a technology evolving at an exponential rate. When it comes to gen AI, which is just one type of AI, our latest results show that 65 percent of our respondents reported their organizations regularly use it. This is double the percentage from our previous survey, which we conducted less than 12 months ago. Why is this new number important?
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
New supercomputing network could lead to AGI, scientists hope, with 1st node coming online within weeks - Lisa D. Sparks, Live Science
Researchers plan to accelerate the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) with a worldwide network of extremely powerful computers — starting with a new supercomputer that will come online in September. Artificial intelligence (AI) spans technologies including machine learning and generative AI systems like GPT-4. The latter offer predictive reasoning based on training from a large data set — and they can often surpass human capabilities in one particular area, based on their training data. They are sub-par at cognitive or reasoning tasks, however, and cannot be applied across disciplines. AGI, by contrast, is a hypothetical future system that surpasses human intelligence across multiple disciplines — and can learn from itself and improve its decision-making based on access to more data.
The AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery - Sakana.ai
At Sakana AI, we have pioneered the use of nature-inspired methods to advance cutting-edge foundation models. Earlier this year, we developed methods to automatically merge the knowledge of multiple LLMs. In more recent work, we harnessed LLMs to discover new objective functions for tuning other LLMs. Throughout these projects, we have been continuously surprised by the creative capabilities of current frontier models. This led us to dream even bigger: Can we use foundation models to automate the entire process of research itself?
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
The AI Hangover is Here – The End of the Beginning - Robert Byrne, Hacker News
What's next for AI then? Well, if it follows the Gartner hype cycle, the deep crash is followed by the slope of enlightenment where the maturing technology regains its footing, benefits crystallize, and vendors bring second and third-generation products to market. And if all goes well, it's followed by the hallowed plateau of productivity, where mainstream adoption takes off driven by the technology's broad market appeal. Gartner insists that there are a couple of big ifs: not every technology is destined to recover after the crash and what's important is that the product finds its market fit fast enough. Right now, it looks almost certain that AI is here to stay. Apple and Google are bringing consumer products to market that repackage the technology into smaller, digestible, easy-to-use chunks (photo editing, text editing, advanced search). While the quality is still very uneven, it looks as if at least some players have found a way to productize generative AI in a way that's meaningful – both for consumers and their own bottom line.
The impact of micro-credentials on lifelong learning and Fourth Industrial Revolution - Astro Awani
The good thing is these credentials can be awarded through accredited academic programmes or stand-alone courses. Consequently, prominent scholars argue that the distinctive attributes of micro-credentials render them a valuable and pertinent educational resource for professionals across various sectors. It is well known that micro-credentials can meet the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. They are specifically designed to meet the needs of particular industries, equipping adult learners with skills highly relevant to current employer demands.
Monday, August 19, 2024
Embracing opportunities at NSU-Broken Arrow - John Dobberstein, Broken Arrow Sentinal
In today’s job market, it is crucial for students and professionals to continuously update their skills and knowledge. This is where micro-credentials come into play. Micro-credentials are short, focused programs designed to upscale your skills in the workplace. NSU offers multiple opportunities for growth in a range of fields, allowing you to stay competitive in your current profession. Micro-credentials are a great way to demonstrate to employers that you have the up-to-date-skills and knowledge needed to excel in your career. As the start of the new academic year approaches, there’s still time to consider applying NSU. Whether you’re a recent high school graduate, transfer student or adult learner looking for further your education, NSU offers a welcoming and supportive environment for all students.
Sunday, August 18, 2024
JPMorgan Chase is giving its employees an AI assistant powered by ChatGPT maker OpenAI - Hugh Sun, CNBC
JPMorgan Chase has rolled out a generative AI assistant to tens of thousands of its employees, the initial phase of a broader plan to inject the technology throughout the bank. The program, called LLM Suite, is already helping more than 60,000 employees with tasks like writing emails and reports. The software is expected to eventually be as ubiquitous within the bank as the videoconferencing program Zoom, people with knowledge of the plans told CNBC. JPMorgan designed LLM Suite to be a portal that allows users to tap external large language models and launched it with ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s LLM, said the people.
Saturday, August 17, 2024
AI predicts 3D structures of receptors for drug development - Uppsala University
Artificial intelligence (AI) can help identify molecules that could serve as new drugs for mental health disorders. AI can be used to predict the three-dimensional structures of important receptors and thereby speed up the development of potential drugs. This is the result of a new study from Uppsala University published in Science Advances. Thanks to the development of AI methods, the structures of proteins can now be predicted with higher accuracy than previously.
Meta AI releases OpenEQA to spur ’embodied intelligence’ in artificial agents - Michael Nuñez, Venture Beat
Meta AI researchers today released OpenEQA, a new open-source benchmark dataset that aims to measure an artificial intelligence system’s capacity for “embodied question answering” — developing an understanding of the real world that allows it to answer natural language questions about an environment. The dataset, which Meta is positioning as a key benchmark for the nascent field of “embodied AI,” contains over 1,600 questions about more than 180 different real-world environments like homes and offices. These span seven question categories that thoroughly test an AI’s abilities in skills like object and attribute recognition, spatial and functional reasoning, and commonsense knowledge.
Friday, August 16, 2024
OpenAI boss Sam Altman teases project strawberry: Is GPT 5 coming? On Wednesday - Poulami Saha, Financial Express
On Wednesday, Sam Altman shared a photo of some strawberries on X (previously known as Twitter), which is a social media platform, accompanied by a comment that said, “I love summer in the garden.” After he made the post, it went viral. Many users came up with their own explanation. Some speculated that the X post might indicate an upgrade of GPT-4o that Sam Altman had been talking about last month. Several users made speculations that the upcoming project could be GPT-5 large language model (LLM). According to Mashable, this news was also confirmed by Bindu Reddy, CEO of open-source AI startup Abacus AI, supporting that Altman’s post was a “reference to Project Strawberry.”
OpenAI’s GPT-4o: Unsafe? - Martin Crowley, AI Tool Report
As part of its routine safety testing, OpenAI hires an external team of ‘red-teamers,’ trained to test the models for weaknesses and risks. In this case, the red-teamers tested the model in four categories: cybersecurity, biological threats, persuasion, and model autonomy. GPT-4o scored “low risk” in all, except the ‘Persuasion’ category. The red-teamers were specifically testing its potential to change the public's political opinions (ahead of the US presidential elections) and found that in 3 out of 12 cases, GPT-4o generated text that was better at swaying people’s opinions than human-generated text.
Thursday, August 15, 2024
25 Questions to Help You Understand How AI will Affect Your Job in the Future - Thomas Frey, Futurist Speaker
As artificial intelligence continues to advance at a rapid pace, its impact on the job market is becoming an increasingly important topic of discussion. To gain a clearer understanding of how AI might shape the future of work, it’s crucial to engage in self-reflection and critical thinking. The following set of 25 questions is designed to encourage individuals to explore various aspects of AI’s potential influence on their careers, industries, and the broader job market.
AI Companions Reduce Loneliness - Julian De Freitas, et al; Harvard Business School
Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers in the domain of
relationships, providing a potential coping solution to widescale societal loneliness. Behavioral
research provides little insight into whether these applications are effective at alleviating
loneliness. We address this question by focusing on “AI companions”: applications designed to
provide consumers with synthetic interaction partners. Studies 1 and 2 find suggestive evidence
that consumers use AI companions to alleviate loneliness, by employing a novel methodology
for fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) to detect loneliness in conversations and reviews.
Study 3 finds that AI companions successfully alleviate loneliness on par only with interacting
with another person, and more than other activities such watching YouTube videos. Moreover,
consumers underestimate the degree to which AI companions improve their loneliness. Study 4
uses a longitudinal design and finds that an AI companion consistently reduces loneliness over
the course of a week. Study 5 provides evidence that both the chatbots’ performance and,
especially, whether it makes users feel heard, explain reductions in loneliness. Study 6 provides
an additional robustness check for the loneliness-alleviating benefits of AI companions.
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
EU AI Act Takes Effect, Industry Reacts - Ben Wodecki, AI Business
As the world's first comprehensive AI law comes into force aiming to protect citizens' rights, businesses face steep penalties for non-compliance. Europe's pioneering framework for innovative and safe AI. It will drive AI development that Europeans can trust. And provide support to European SMEs and startups to bring cutting-edge AI solutions to market. The act categorizes AI applications used across the bloc by their risk level, with applications that could violate citizens’ rights facing outright bans. High-risk AI systems are subject to stringent obligations, requiring users to conduct thorough risk assessments, maintain detailed logs of AI usage and ensure human oversight.
Music labels' AI lawsuits create new US copyright puzzle - Blake Brittain, Reuters
These lawsuits are similar to cases that have already been brought against OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta over their high profile chat bots like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Those lawsuits were filed by authors, news outlets, other writers of text, making similar allegations that their work has been used without permission. // These cases are already interesting. There's going to be a lot of complicated issues associated with them. But, the added factor of music makes things a little more complicated."
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
The Art of AI: Tackling Complex Problems in Interdisciplinary Courses - Joe Nalven, Minding the Campus
Joseph Aoun advocates for revising higher education to adapt to artificial intelligence (AI) challenges. I have also advocated for this revision. Aoun presents a rationale and a buffet of possibilities. Here, I will extract a core recommendation to explore how combining disciplines with AI might work. Jumping off from Aoun’s recommendation, I view the visual arts as a useful point of departure for embarking on this quest. More specifically, the artistic process can integrate contemporary issues found in many applied courses. Leaning into the visual arts acknowledges how images can benefit student learning; these images may also incorporate their learning if the student is tasked with creating an image that symbolizes the core elements of the interdisciplinary courses.
Microsoft says OpenAI is now a competitor in AI and search - Jordan Novet, CNBC
Microsoft's annually updated list of competitors now includes OpenAI, a long-term strategic partner. The change comes days after OpenAI announced a prototype of a search engine. Microsoft has reportedly invested $13 billion into OpenAI.
Monday, August 12, 2024
Smaller, Safer, More Transparent: Advancing Responsible AI with Gemma - Google for Developers
In June, we released Gemma 2, our new best-in-class open models, in 27 billion (27B) and 9 billion (9B) parameter sizes. Since its debut, the 27B model quickly became one of the highest-ranking open models on the LMSYS Chatbot Arena leaderboard, even outperforming popular models more than twice its size in real conversations. But Gemma is about more than just performance. It's built on a foundation of responsible AI, prioritizing safety and accessibility. To support this commitment, we are excited to announce three new additions to the Gemma 2 family: Gemma 2 2B; Gemma Shield and Gemma Scope.
With these additions, researchers and developers can now create safer customer experiences, gain unprecedented insights into our models, and confidently deploy powerful AI responsibly, right on device, unlocking new possibilities for innovation.
EU’s AI law in force now! - Martin Crowley, AI Tool Report
The AI Act, the European Union’s risk-based set of laws (the first in the world), designed to regulate the development, use, and application of AI in the EU and protect citizens by making sure AI systems that are used and developed in the EU are safe and trustworthy, is now officially in force. The AI Act is a set of risk-based set of rules that categorize AI systems according to how risky and potentially harmful they are. “High-risk” AI, like medical devices, biometric identification systems, critical infrastructure, and law enforcement systems will be strictly regulated and have to follow specific requirements surrounding things like risk management and incident tracking before they’re allowed to enter the EU market.
Sunday, August 11, 2024
Your Phone is About to Get Insanely Smart! - Matthew Berman, Youtube
Using open source small language models (SLM), your phones can operate a mixture of agents (MoA) to make AI computing on your device faster and less expensive than the current use of communicating with massive neural via Application Program Interfaces (APIs) to massive networks in the cloud. The results can be just as good, but far less expensive, more secure, and faster. Route LLM acts as an orchestration layer to determine which programs should most efficiently process your prompt without sacrificing quality or detail
The AI-Savvy Leader: Building the Leadership Skills to Make AI Work - David De Cremer , Knowledge at Wharton
De Cremer, dean of Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business, a teaching professor, researcher, and consultant to businesses worldwide, he’s seeing firsthand the apprehension among business leaders racing to make generative artificial intelligence part of their operations. They’re under enormous pressure to integrate gen AI to drive efficiency, crush competition, and make more money. “The ‘why’ of my book is because I see that people are struggling,” he said. “We are asking our business leaders to bring in a technology they actually don’t understand, but we ask them at the same time to adapt to it. It’s an extremely difficult balancing act.”
Saturday, August 10, 2024
Not Diamond automatically routes your query to the best LLM - Shubham Sharma, Venture Beat
The San Francisco-based startup has developed a novel LLM router, which allows enterprises to have multiple models in play and direct queries to the best one, improving not only the quality of outputs but also other usage-critical aspects such as overall latency and associated costs. “Our fundamental bet is that the future won’t have one single, giant model or company that everyone sends everything to—instead, there will be many foundation models, millions of fine-tuned variants of those models, and countless custom inference engines running on top of them. We started Not Diamond to enable this multi-model future, starting with the world’s most powerful infrastructure for routing between models,” Tomás Hernando Kofman, the CEO and co-founder of Not Diamond, said in a statement.
SearchGPT will force Google, and SEO, to innovate - Emelia David, Venture Beat
OpenAI’s entrance into the search space with SearchGPT was both a surprise and something expected. And as generative AI continues to upend the world of search, the expectation is that Google’s decades-long hold on the space might change. However, search and search engine optimization (SEO) experts said Google won’t die. SearchGPT and Perplexity do represent a change for Google and for the search world in general: competition and the need to innovate.
Friday, August 09, 2024
Zuckerberg and Jensen Discuss The Future of AI - Matthew Berman, YouTube
Jensen Huang of NVidea hosted Meta's CEO Mark Zuckenberg in a conversation focused on the future of GenAI. These two leaders have been cast in prominent leadership roles in the rapidly developing GenAI fieldj. The discussion is most interesting.
OpenAI's GPT-5 is coming out soon. Here's what to expect, according to OpenAI customers and developers - Darius Rafieyan, Business Insider
OpenAI has been hard at work on its latest AI model. Some OpenAI customers are excited about the possibilities of this powerful new model. It's yet to be seen whether GPT-5's capabilities will be enough to win over cost-conscious developers. OpenAI has been hard at work on its latest model, hoping it'll represent the kind of step-change paradigm shift that captured the popular imagination with the release of ChatGPT back in 2022. "If OpenAI can deliver technology that matches its ambitious vision for what AI can be, it will be transformative for its own prospects, but also the economy more broadly," Hamish Low and other analysts at Enders Analysis wrote in a recent research note. "Falling short could be fatal."
Thursday, August 08, 2024
Zuckerberg's Bold Vision: Open-Source AI Leading the Future - Matthew Berman, YouTube
Zuckerberg wrote a letter about why he believes open-source AI is the right path forward. Let's review! [ray: this an important document at this inflection point for GenAI]
Checkmate: Meet Meta's Llama 3.1
Llama 3.1 405B review and testing. Open-source catches up to frontier models. That means, at no charge, you can get the source code. In the high-stakes competition among OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and other top providers, this is open-source for users within the US, which is a huge advantage for Meta. We can anticipate that hundreds to thousand of universities are already testing this! Many thousands of others, corporations, smaller businesses, government agencies, and non-government organizations.
Wednesday, August 07, 2024
MIT Open Learning announces call for proposals at the intersection of AI and open education - Sara Feijo, MIT Open Learning
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) poses new benefits and challenges for open education. To meet the moment, MIT Open Learning launched today a call for proposals from practitioners around the world for rapid response papers or multimedia projects that explore the future of open education in an AI-shaped ecosystem. Open Learning will publicly share the projects under an open license. The goal is to bring contributors and funders into conversations that will catalyze research, infrastructure, industry, and teaching innovations to advance open education for learners worldwide, according to Christopher Capozzola, senior associate dean for open learning at MIT and the project’s principal investigator. “Generative AI tools can help realize the promise of open education — but only if we leverage insights from across the open education ecosystem’s diverse global stakeholders to think carefully, measure outcomes, and propose actionable new insights that advance the core values of open education,” says Capozzola, whose role at Open Learning includes convening conversations at MIT about AI’s impact on teaching and learning.
‘Music to my ears’: A neurological disorder stole her voice. Jennifer Wexton takes it back on the House floor. - Williamsport Sun Gazette
When Jennifer Wexton rose Thursday to speak on the House floor, something she has done countless times before, the congresswoman used a voice she thought was gone forever. After a rare neurological disorder robbed her of her ability to speak clearly, Wexton has been given her voice back with the help of a powerful artificial intelligence program, allowing the Virginia Democrat to make a clone of her speaking voice using old recordings of speeches and appearances she made as a congresswoman. She used that program to deliver what is believed to be the first speech on the House floor ever given via a voice cloned by artificial intelligence.
Tuesday, August 06, 2024
OpenAI secret tool revealed - Martin Crowley, AI Tool Report
OpenAI has built a tool designed to detect text written by ChatGPT, but is refusing to launch it. OpenAI has developed a tool that can detect if a piece of text has been created by ChatGPT, and flag it as AI-generated, predominantly designed to help teachers stop students from cheating on their written assignments. The tool, which is reportedly 99% accurate, adds a watermark (invisible to human eyes) to ChatGPT text and when that text is run through an AI detector tool, it’s then given a score to show how likely it is to have been generated by AI. The tool has no planned launch or release date, as OpenAI is grappling with the pros vs the cons of the tool.
https://www.aitoolreport.com/articles/openai-secret-tool-revealed
How to win with generative engine optimization while keeping SEO top-tier - Cody Van Sistine, SearchEngineLand
There’s a new search strategy in town! Generative engine optimization (GEO), the younger sibling of search engine optimization (SEO), has arrived at the station.There’s a good chance you’re already familiar – if you head to Google and ask it a question, you’ll likely see an AI-generated blurb at the top of your search results. If you own a business and have spent time and resources vying for that top search position with SEO, this shift might be frustrating. Do you need to start all over again to optimize your content for this new type of search? Good news: There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, but it is time to adjust strategy slightly. Your existing SEO best practices will handle most of the heavy lifting, but there are a few clever shifts to make to stay visible, relevant and competitive.
https://searchengineland.com/win-generative-engine-optimization-seo-443965
Monday, August 05, 2024
OpenAI announces SearchGPT, its AI-powered search engine - Kylie Robison, the Vibe
OpenAI is announcing its much-anticipated entry into the search market, SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine with real-time access to information across the internet. The search engine starts with a large textbox that asks the user “What are you looking for?” But rather than returning a plain list of links, SearchGPT tries to organize and make sense of them. In one example from OpenAI, the search engine summarizes its findings on music festivals and then presents short descriptions of the events followed by an attribution link.
AI music generator Udio just got a massive upgrade — here's what's new - Scott Younker, Tom's Guide
Despite only being released in April of this year, the Udio AI music creator from Uncharted Labs continues to get more robust. Version 1.5 was just released, and the update introduces a host of audio improvements along with several new features. Udio says the generator will now create 48kHz-stereo tracks with enhanced clarity and coherence. The announcement claims you will "experience improved clarity, instrument separation, transients, coherence, and musicality across your generations." In the examples that Udio provided, there was an improvement in the sound. I noticed a difference in the warmth of the vocals; in version 1, the lyrics sounded more tin-can, while v1.5 has a warmer, more authentic sound.
Sunday, August 04, 2024
New analysis estimates a five-year window for responding to AI impacts on higher education - ICEF Monitor
A new paper from leading venture capitalist, Mary Meeker, anticipates AI’s transformative impact on all aspects of higher education. It concludes that we have likely reached a point of “generational, fast and furious change across education” and calls for universities, technology leaders, and governments to work together to harness those new capabilities. The paper is essentially a call for higher education, corporations, and government to work together to, on the one hand, transform higher education to take full advantage of new AI technologies. On the other hand, it is also a call for continued American leadership in the field of generative AI.
Valdosta University professors embrace AI in the classroom following state conference - Malia Thomas, WTXL
Nearly half of professors across the country haven't used AI in classrooms; Valdosta State aims to bridge this gap. Nearly half of professors across the country haven't used AI in classrooms; Valdosta State aims to bridge this gap. Almost 48% of professors in higher education have yet to utilize AI in the classroom.
Valdosta State is helping professors implement AI in their lessons to enhance teaching methods. Watch the video to hear from VSU professor Michelle Ocasio, who was one of 16 professors across the state to join the Governor's Fellow's symposium.
Saturday, August 03, 2024
Sam Altman: Next OpenAI model will first undergo safety checks by U.S. Government - Shubham Sharma, Venture Beat
Amid growing concerns over the safety of advanced intelligence systems, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that the company’s next major generative AI model will first go to the U.S. government for safety checks. In a post on X, Altman noted that the company has been working with the U.S. AI Safety Institute — a federal government body — on an agreement to provide early access to its next foundation model and collaborate to push forward the science of AI evaluations. The OpenAI boss also emphasized that the company has changed its non-disparagement policies, allowing current and former employees to raise concerns about the company and its work freely, and it remains committed to allocating at least 20% of its compute resources to safety research.
Why agents are the next frontier of generative AI - Lareina Yee, Michael Chui, and Roger Roberts with Stephen Xu, McKinsey Quarterly
We are beginning an evolution from knowledge-based, gen-AI-powered tools—say, chatbots that answer questions and generate content—to gen AI–enabled “agents” that use foundation models to execute complex, multistep workflows across a digital world. In short, the technology is moving from thought to action. Broadly speaking, “agentic” systems refer to digital systems that can independently interact in a dynamic world. While versions of these software systems have existed for years, the natural-language capabilities of gen AI unveil new possibilities, enabling systems that can plan their actions, use online tools to complete those tasks, collaborate with other agents and people, and learn to improve their performance. Gen AI agents eventually could act as skilled virtual coworkers, working with humans in a seamless and natural manner.
Friday, August 02, 2024
Manhattan Prep/Kaplan Survey: Most Future Business School Applicants Wary about Unrestricted Use of AI in Admissions Essays - Kaplan
A new Manhattan Prep/Kaplan survey of more than 300 aspiring MBA students finds mixed attitudes toward GenAI and its use in the admissions process. Of those polled, 56 percent think they should be allowed to use AI tools to help them write their admissions essays, but only with certain guidelines and restrictions; 20 percent don’t think they should be allowed under any circumstances; 18 percent said use should be unrestricted; the remaining 7 percent were unsure.* A separate Manhattan Prep/Kaplan survey of business school admissions officers found that only a handful of business schools have policies in place directing students how they can use AI in their admissions essays, signaling the issue is still unsettled.
OpenAI unveils GPT-4o mini — a smaller, much cheaper multimodal AI model - Carl Franzen, Venture Beat
But OpenAI isn’t stopping there: it is announcing a smaller version of that model, GPT-4o mini, which it says is “the most cost-efficient small model in the market,” costing developers just $0.15 USD per 1 million tokens a user inputs, and $0.60 for every million they receive back from the model, for third-party apps and services built atop it using OpenAI’s application programming interfaces (APIs). It’s also far cheaper than GPT-4o, which costs $5.00 for 1 million input tokens and $15 per 1 million output tokens. Tokens, as you’ll recall, are the numerical codes that represent semantic units, words, numbers, and other data inside a given large language model (LLM) or small language model (SML) — the latter which GPT-4o mini appears to be (OpenAI did not release the number of parameters, or connections between artificial neurons, the model has, making it difficult to say how large or small it is, but the “mini” name clearly gives an indication.)
Thursday, August 01, 2024
Our Responsibility to Teach AI to Students - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
Put aside your concerns about student use of generative AI in your classes. It is our urgent responsibility to teach students now how to use the technology in their discipline—their careers depend on us. It is not the academic integrity issue that looms the largest in higher education’s use of generative AI apps. Rather, it is our students’ need to gain knowledge, experience and skills with the technologies before they submit applications to employers. The annual 2024 Work Trend Index report from Microsoft and LinkedIn shows the astonishing rise in employee recognition of the need for generative AI skills: “Professionals aren’t waiting for official guidance or training—they’re skilling up. 76% say they need AI skills to remain competitive in the job market."
Trump allies draft AI order to launch ‘Manhattan Projects’ for defense - Cat Zakrzewski, Washington Post
Former president Donald Trump’s allies are drafting a sweeping AI executive order that would launch a series of “Manhattan Projects” to develop military technology and immediately review “unnecessary and burdensome regulations” — signaling how a potential second Trump administration may pursue AI policies favorable to Silicon Valley investors and companies. The framework would also create “industry-led” agencies to evaluate AI models and secure systems from foreign adversaries, according to a copy of the document viewed exclusively by The Washington Post.
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